Assumption
by jackwabbit
Summary: Humor. Tony, Natasha, and Clint. Implied BlackHawk (friendship or more). Spoilers: Iron Man 2, Avengers. Summary: Everyone knows what happens when one assumes. Well, everyone except Tony Stark.


**Assumption**  
Rated: G  
Category: Humor. Tony, Natasha, and Clint. Implied BlackHawk (friendship or more).  
Spoilers: Iron Man 2, Avengers.  
Summary: Everyone knows what happens when one assumes. Well, everyone except Tony Stark.  
Word Count: 1568.  
Note: Written for the Be Comromised LJ Com's Mini-Promptathon: workerbee73 asked for "Always jelly beans; never chocolate." This is a little late for Valentine's Day, but I figured it worked just fine for Easter, too, so here we are.

xxx

"I can't believe someone gave me these," said Natasha in disgust.

Tony's brow crinkled. "What? The chocolates?"

"Yes!" fumed Natasha. "The chocolates!"

"What? You allergic or something?" asked Tony, stealing a quick look at Pepper, who was seated next to him on the couch in the common area of Avengers Tower.

Pepper gave him a dirty look, but Tony ignored it.

"No, I'm not allergic," said Natasha, barely containing a growl.

"Then what's the problem?" asked Tony.

Natasha actually pouted, which earned an astounded stare from Tony.

"I don't like chocolate," she nearly whined.

"I thought all women liked chocolate!" argued Stark. Pepper wisely stayed silent.

"Well, I don't," said Natasha. "And I'll have you know I'm not the only woman who doesn't."

"Oh, yeah?" sneered Tony. "Name one other person who doesn't like chocolate."

"I'm not getting into this with you, Stark," said Natasha, her voice taking on a warning edge.

Tony smiled. "That's just because you can't name one."

"Yes, I can," replied Natasha, "I'm just not going to waste my time on the likes of you."

With that, she stormed from the room, depositing the chocolates in Pepper's lap as she passed by.

"Geez, touchy," said Tony, as Natasha disappeared around the corner.

Pepper shrugged. "Oh, well. More for me," she said, opening the box and selecting a single piece of chocolate to sample.

Tony grinned and tried to snatch a piece of his own.

Pepper smacked his hand away. "Hey! These are mine!"

"I bought them," argued Tony.

"True, but you gave them to Natasha, and she gave them to me, so they're mine now."

Tony's eyebrows rose. "That so?"

Pepper nodded. "It is."

"I don't suppose you'd share?" asked Tony, batting his eyes innocently.

Pepper didn't answer. Instead, she simply shut the box and followed Natasha's path out of the room.

After a moment, Tony sighed to himself.

"I can't win," he groaned. "I get Romanoff something for Easter to be nice, and this is what I get. Two women leaving me in the lurch."

A slow, deep chuckle answered Tony's words.

Tony whipped around and glared at Clint, who was seated in a chair on the other side of the room. He'd completely forgotten the archer was there until the noise reminded him of the other man's presence.

"What's so funny?" demanded Tony.

Clint merely chuckled again, and Tony glared harder.

"What?" he said.

Clint shook his head ruefully, grinned, and stood slowly.

When it was clear he was going to leave without answering too, Tony threw his hands in the air.

"Can no one answer a simple question in this place?"

Clint continued walking, and Tony slumped into the couch, arms folded across his chest. He seemed resigned to his fate of no one answering him.

But just as Clint reached the door, he paused. He turned his head over one shoulder, then opened his mouth slightly as if he were going to speak. Tony sat up and gave him an encouraging look, but the archer shut his mouth after a moment and continued on his way without a word.

Tony folded back into the cushions, a scowl on his face.

He sat that way for several minutes, then shrugged and stood up. He had better things to do than worry about the idiosyncrasies of Natasha Romanoff and her crazy partner. Within twenty minutes, he was completely absorbed in a new upgrade for his suit, and all thoughts of food - even chocolates - were forgotten.

The next morning found him slumped and drooling over his workbench, his coffee cold and his face imprinted with fine lines from sleeping on his keyboard.

Tony didn't find this odd in the least. He often slept this way. He rubbed sleep out of his eyes and stretched. That's when he saw it. Something was out of place. To most people, the array of small parts, slips of paper, and tools that sprawled over Tony's workbench would look like chaos. But to Tony, it was nothing of the sort. He knew where everything was and what it was doing there.

So when he spied a yellow sticky note that hadn't been there the night before, he immediately focused on it. He leaned over and pulled it from his desk with a curious expression on his face. Rhodey was out of town, and Pepper would never leave him a note when she could wake him up to remind him personally of whatever he was supposed to be doing that he wasn't doing. And since no one else ever came to his lab, Tony was a bit baffled as to who had left the note.

A moment later, he had his answer.

Though the note was unsigned, there was little doubt as to its origin. Hawkeye's distinctive scrawl spelled out only three lines, but they were all Tony needed to understand things completely.

_For future reference:_

_1-I got this._

_2-Always jelly beans. Never chocolate._

Tony chuckled for a long moment, then tossed the note in the recycling bin next to his workstation and turned back to the assortment of mechanical doodads in front of him. He slid his cold coffee cup to one side and looked up at the schematic above his desk. He gave it an appraising look, then spoke aloud to the room.

"J.A.R.V.I.S?"

The AI answered him immediately. "Yes, sir?"

"I'm going upstairs for a shower," said Tony, standing and crossing the room to the exit. "While I'm gone, can you run a take-off simulation using fifteen percent more power in thruster relays three and five?"

"Already started."

Tony pulled open the door to the lab, then paused. "Good. Oh, and J.A.R.V.I.S?"

"Yes?"

"Remind me to upgrade lab security when I get back."

"Of course, sir. Any particular concerns?"

J.A.R.V.I.S's voice was nearly tinged with sarcasm. Tony grinned, then answered with only another long, slow chuckle. As the door swung closed behind him, he grinned wider. See, he'd learned three things from Clint's note. First, that his suspicions about Hawkeye and Black Widow being more than partners in the field had at least some merit; second, that Natasha was one of those fruity candy types (literally); and third, that Clint Barton had changed his mind about talking to Tony but had chosen to do so by somehow infiltrating his lab undetected and leaving a note rather than just talking to him, like a sane person would have done. This last bit was frankly the only thing Tony was likely to remember past dinner, and like all things that truly attracted his attention, he didn't actually need a reminder to work on it.

Despite his words to J.A.R.V.I.S., there was no way Tony was would forget the issue. Like food the night before, thoughts of his suit's upgrades flew from his mind and were replaced with those of heat sensors, lasers, motion detectors, and alarms. Even a hot shower couldn't distract him from his latest obsession, and when he was finished, Tony headed straight back to his lab. When the door shut behind him, J.A.R.V.I.S greeted him with an update.

"I've finished running the simulation you asked for," he said.

Tony waved the AI off. "Yeah. Good. But that can wait. Bring up the security systems instead."

"As you wish," answered J.A.R.V.I.S.

Tony ignored the slight disapproval in J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice and sat down at his workbench. He immediately started manipulating various aspects of the schematic J.A.R.V.I.S provided.

Several hours later, Tony leaned back in his chair, cracked his knuckles, and smiled. Then he crossed his arms and studied the blueprints in front of him for a long moment before he leaned forward again and decisively hit the enter key on his keyboard. As the new security measures he'd designed began to take form, Tony had only one thought.

Tony being Tony, he couldn't help but share that thought.

He grabbed his phone and typed a short message. Almost immediately, on the other side of the tower, Clint's phone alerted him to a new text. He picked it up and read the text quickly, then burst out laughing. If Natasha thought this odd from her place on the opposite side of the training room, she didn't say anything. She merely shrugged and continued her work out. A moment later, Clint did the same, but his mind was somewhere else entirely, because while he wouldn't use a phone to do so, he couldn't wait to respond to Tony's message. A persistent smirk that would make many men tremble soon formed on his lips, but when Natasha saw it later, she just sighed and rolled her eyes, wondering what trouble Clint was up to now. That is, until Clint cocked his head sideways and narrowed his eyes at her, clearly deep in thought. That's when she gave him a confused look back and he spoke up.

"How'd you like to help me with something?" he asked.

Natasha raised one eyebrow. "Oh?"

Clint nodded, but instead of answering verbally, he handed Natasha his phone, open to the text he'd received earlier from Tony.

Natasha looked at it for a long moment, then looked up at Clint with a wicked grin.

Clint gave her the same smile back and Natasha nodded.

Then she said those three little words that Clint was waiting to hear, and the fate of Tony Stark (and his new security system) was sealed.

"Game on indeed."


End file.
